Outhouse Editor

I couldn't care less about Doom Patrol. I wish I could. They don't seem to be terrible characters and they've got great visuals. Still, everytime I've read their adventures, I find them to be incredibly boring. Maybe if I'd read some of Morrison's stuff... but I'm not going out of my way for it at this point.

So what we have here is a story featuring characters that don't intrigue me doing things that don't interest me. Doom Patrol membership has some sort of shelf life now where the peripheral members are red shirts and only Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy are guaranteed to survive. Since this seems to be the central theme? Zzzzzzzzzz.

And the info text that gives us all the important bits about the main characters? Unreadable. Well, nigh unreadable. Too much information in a terrible format. Nice and stylized and completely useless.

The art was actually good. I can give props where props are deserved. The characters look cool and the layouts are great. Panel flow is easy to follow and all that good stuff. I've always been impressed by Matthew Clark.

The highlight of the comic? The Metal Men back up. That thing was awesome. Maybe it reads better after going through the dreck of the main story. All I know is that, if I come back for issue two, it's because of Metal Men. The art was great. The story was fun. The writing was brilliant. This is the classic team of Giffen, Dematteis, and Maguire and it's as good as ever. I would pick up a comic about Metal Men if this was the team doing it.

As it is, I probably won't be coming back. Doom Patrol isn't worth buying just for nine good pages.

Outhouse Editor

I couldn't care less about Doom Patrol. I wish I could. They don't seem to be terrible characters and they've got great visuals. Still, everytime I've read their adventures, I find them to be incredibly boring. Maybe if I'd read some of Morrison's stuff... but I'm not going out of my way for it at this point.

So what we have here is a story featuring characters that don't intrigue me doing things that don't interest me. Doom Patrol membership has some sort of shelf life now where the peripheral members are red shirts and only Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy are guaranteed to survive. Since this seems to be the central theme? Zzzzzzzzzz.

And the info text that gives us all the important bits about the main characters? Unreadable. Well, nigh unreadable. Too much information in a terrible format. Nice and stylized and completely useless.

The art was actually good. I can give props where props are deserved. The characters look cool and the layouts are great. Panel flow is easy to follow and all that good stuff. I've always been impressed by Matthew Clark.

The highlight of the comic? The Metal Men back up. That thing was awesome. Maybe it reads better after going through the dreck of the main story. All I know is that, if I come back for issue two, it's because of Metal Men. The art was great. The story was fun. The writing was brilliant. This is the classic team of Giffen, Dematteis, and Maguire and it's as good as ever. I would pick up a comic about Metal Men if this was the team doing it.

As it is, I probably won't be coming back. Doom Patrol isn't worth buying just for nine good pages.

Outhouse Editor

Running a mission in Buena Suerte, team member Nudge (who is so unimportant, Giffen doesn’t even bother to let the reader know what her name is until long after this event and more than half of the story presented here is over) gets obliterated. This traumatic experience means that a priest is sent by Dr. Niles Caulder, the founder of the team, to make sure everyone is okay.

Turns out everyone is not okay. Turns out the entire team is made up of unlikeable characters and apparently run by one too, as Caulder seems not to be worried about his team's feelings as much as whether or not they still feel bored enough to be heroes.

In the end it’s all set up. I understand what Giffen is doing. He is showing the reader how broken these characters are. He is giving us characterization and setting. There are great ideas here. Bumblebee living in a Barbie Dream House. Their base of operations being on Oolong. Most noticeable, a heck of an intriguing cliffhanger.

Outhouse Editor

Running a mission in Buena Suerte, team member Nudge (who is so unimportant, Giffen doesn’t even bother to let the reader know what her name is until long after this event and more than half of the story presented here is over) gets obliterated. This traumatic experience means that a priest is sent by Dr. Niles Caulder, the founder of the team, to make sure everyone is okay.

Turns out everyone is not okay. Turns out the entire team is made up of unlikeable characters and apparently run by one too, as Caulder seems not to be worried about his team's feelings as much as whether or not they still feel bored enough to be heroes.

In the end it’s all set up. I understand what Giffen is doing. He is showing the reader how broken these characters are. He is giving us characterization and setting. There are great ideas here. Bumblebee living in a Barbie Dream House. Their base of operations being on Oolong. Most noticeable, a heck of an intriguing cliffhanger.